


Kepler A-67c

by becca2793



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, allura is the best honestly she deserves the world, astronomer au, gratuitous space lingo, with some background klance bc i cant resist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 09:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8281508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becca2793/pseuds/becca2793
Summary: Shiro is very interesting, and a good man. He raves about his brother, listens intently when she talks, even brings her lunch sometimes. She does her best not to let it get to her too much. He’s a colleague. Just a colleague.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PookElucy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PookElucy/gifts).



> For Lucy, who requested some Shallura :) I took some liberties with the rest

She does not like her nickname. The Princess of Astronomy, they call her, except that it almost always sounds patronizing. Maybe they don't mean it that way, but that's how she hears it. "They're jealous," she used to hear, but sometimes she thinks it has a little more to do with prejudice. You'd think intelligent people would be above that, but it seems as though they aren't.   
  
She slumps forward in her chair, the wheels on the bottom of it sliding around noisily, squeaking away, and stares blankly at the screen. She doesn't even see anything anymore, like her vision has totally blurred over due to how bored she is. The coffee brewing in the corner smells delicious, though, and she hopes it can bring her back to reality. In the other corner, Coran scribbles away at something in his notebook. He's always writing in that damn thing, she thinks. Mumbling, too. Coran just likes to hear himself talk sometimes; likes to ramble away about whatever project he's on. Right now that's deciphering data coming in from Juno, the probe sent out to Jupiter. It's just arrived, so everyone around her has been scrambling to see what it has to say. She's more interested in exoplanets, personally. It's interesting to see what's close astronomically speaking, but it's more interesting to see what's thousands of light years away.   
  
After Kepler found the system A-67, she immediately knew something was weird about it. Well, no, almost all of the systems Kepler has found seem weird, where planets spin counter-clockwise while their star spins clockwise, or gas giants get closer to their star than Mercury, but this was a different kind of weird. A planet, which she has dubbed as Altea, lays in a perfectly habitable zone. This wasn't the first planet found like this, but it was the first planet to look like it could be the most Earth-like, seeming to be exactly one AU away from their star, which is maybe just a little warmer and larger than their own. Not by much, maybe by the mass of a couple Jupiters. In comparison with the Earth, that's massive; in comparison with a star? Not so much.   
  
So she found this planet, and in true scientist fashion - named it after herself. Her father, really, who inspired her to become an astronomer in the first place, but it's her last name as well.   
  
Altea is fairly close, as well. A meager three hundred and eighty light years away; it's actually insanely close in the grand scheme of things. Closer even than Kepler 438b, which was discovered last year. And has a decidedly less cool name. Both were hard to find due to their small size, and both are in the Goldilocks zone, but the difference is that A-67 has a closer likeness to Sol. So now she has a little name for herself and her own section at the observatory at a state college, where she also teaches. It's always been her dream, it's just bittersweet since her parents never got to see her discover the planet.   
  
The coffee machine goes off, and she sits for a moment longer before pushing herself out of the chair and standing. She ties her long hair into a bun, stretches, and then makes her way to the annoyingly old machine. She thinks it's probably from the 90's, when people only apparently needed one button on their coffee maker. The power switch. Nevertheless, it makes damn good coffee. "Coran," she calls. "Would you like a cup?"   
  
He straightens and turns around. "Why, I would love one!" And then gets back to whatever he was doing, taking data or something. She pulls a Styrofoam cup from the pack next to the coffee pot and pours them both a cup, then adds sugar to Coran's. She needs creamer and sugar.   
  
After the coffee has been poured and stirred she stalks back to her computer and sets it on her desk before falling into her chair with a sigh. They've been here for hours already, and it's well after dark. If she's here this late, it's usually to use the telescope, not to work. Or sit around. She wants to be home, in her bed, curled up with her mice all happy and fed in their houses. There's a new professor coming in tomorrow, however, so she needs to prepare for him. Shirogane Takashi. She wonders what he goes by, just Takashi? Or Doctor Shirogane? It doesn't matter. He'll probably say when he introduces himself.   
  
Her desk clock tells her it's after midnight and she needs to get to work, so with a determined glare at her laptop, she does. 

* * *

 She wakes up with her face on her keyboard, keys pressing into her cheek, eyes heavy and hard to open. Sniffling, she sits up, wiping at her closed eyelids, and then looks around. She stayed in the office last night, and it looks like Coran did, too. It also looks like the thing that woke her is her ringing mobile. She scrambles to find it in the organized clutter that is her desk, and sighs in relief when she pulls it from underneath a notebook. She answers it.

“Hello?” She asks, brushing her hair out of her face. “This is Allura.”

“ _Hello_ , _Doctor Altea_ ,” says the other person, pleasantly. She pulls the phone away from her ear; she doesn’t recognize the number. _“I was just wondering if you could unlock the door to the main building? It’s…a few minutes after our meeting time.”_

Her head snaps in the direction of the clock on her monitor. A few minutes is being kind. Twenty minutes is more like it. “Oh, shit,” she curses, and then catches herself. “Oh my god, sorry! Um, yes, I’m coming down now. I do apologize.”

_“It’s no problem, I don’t have a class until ten.”_

Well, this must be Doctor Shirogane (Takashi?), then. He’s the only person she had a meeting with this morning. He seems nice on first impression – nicer than most of the people she works with, at least. “I’ll be down in just one second. Give me just one moment.”

“ _Of course_ ,” he laughs, and the sound is rich, melodious, too gorgeous for this early in the morning.

She hangs up and shoves the phone in the pocket of her jeans before darting into the bathroom. She looks rather like hell, with her hair just this side of greasy and falling out of the bun she had put it in last nice and her eyes a little bloodshot and watery from just waking up. Concealer, what she needs is some concealer, and maybe some lipstick? But she forgoes it, because it’s a late November morning and her associate is probably freezing out there. She just redoes her up-do and rushes out of her office, down the stairs, and to the front door. She straightens her shirt, making sure she doesn’t look too indecent, and then undoes the latch for the lock.

Her first impression is immediate disbelief. Nobody in this field looks like that. He looks…like an actor, maybe, or a fitness coach. He’s nearly literally drop-dead gorgeous, if her stuttering heartbeat has anything to say about it. But she plays it off, because this is a soon-to-be coworker, and not a potential partner. Not by a long shot. She is professional to the end. “Do come inside,” she says, ushering him in. “You must be freezing.”

“It’s not so bad,” he smiles, warmly, warm enough to melt the ice forming on the doorstep. She disregards it and shuts the door behind him once he’s past her. She leaves it unlocked since it’s after eight and the early people will start coming in soon. Well, early by her coworkers’ standards. She once heard that it’s nearly impossible to get an astronomer up before seven am, and she doesn’t doubt it – at least from what she’s seen.

They start up the stairs, Shirogane trailing behind her, and when she gets to her office Coran is still asleep, snoring loudly. She discreetly, but harshly, kicks his chair to wake him, which he does with a stuttering start. “Oh, good morning!” He says exuberantly, as if he hasn’t been awake for less than ten seconds. He looks at the man next to her. “Well, you must be Doctor Shirogane. Wonderful to meet you.”

“Just call me Shiro,” he nods, still smiling, and then he turns to her. “That extends to you as well.”

She nods, a slight incline of her head. “Sure,” she says, attempting a smile as well – she’s still a little sleepy though, so it’s hard. “Um, please, have a seat.” She gestures to the only other chair in the room, which used to belong to another associate of hers, Sam Holt.  “I’m going to put on some coffee, would you like some?”

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

“So, Shiro,” she starts, attempting to make conversation. “I apologize, but I haven’t heard which classes you teach here. I’m assuming an astronomy course?”

“Yes, two, actually,” he chuckles. “Both introductory Astrophysics.”

Oh, so he must be very intelligent as well. They’re undergrad courses, but high level ones. “That’s wonderful – it seems as though this school doesn’t understand a population cap and insists on continually admitting students even when there are no courses for them, so it’s a good thing we’re getting extra professors.”

“And you teach Modern Observational Tech, right?”

“Yes,” she nods, pouring the grinds into the filter. “Spectroscopic and photoelectric observations and reductions, mostly.”

“Spectroscopic observation is how you discovered Altea, correct?”

Everyone always brings it back to that, it seems, but she can’t fault him for it. She would be massively interested in anyone who discovered a planet as well. “It is,” she tells him, as agreeably as she can. “It took a very long time.”

“I can imagine,” Shiro returns, wryly. And then he drops it, as if reading the mood she was trying to hide. “How did you get started in all of this, then?”

Allura pauses for a moment, as she’s pouring the water into the back of the machine. “My father,” she says, whispers almost.

“Alfor Altea, yes,” he says, sympathetically. “I know it was long ago, but I’m sorry for your loss.”

She shakes her head. “It is no matter. As you said, it was long ago.” She clicks the machine on and steps away from it with what she hopes is a pleasant smile and walks back to her desk. “How did you get started in all of this, then?”

“Oh,” he says, laughing softly. “It kind of fell into my lap, to be honest with you. I got my Ph.D. in Physics, actually, and was a professor upstate, but when I transferred here there were more than enough physics professors and not enough astronomy ones. So here I am.”

“You’re interested in research?”

“Yes, very,” he nods. “But I don’t think that’s why I’m here.” She must look obviously confused, so he goes on. “I’m probably a replacement for your previous astrophysicist, Doctor Holt. I did my dissertation on Kepler 438b, so perhaps they thought it would be ironic to place us in the same workspace.”

Despite herself, she laughs. “It is, rather. Tell me, was your dissertation boasting the first Goldilocks exoplanet over Altea?”

He shakes his head. “Individuals of science never make such a bias,” he tells her with a grin.

“Yes, I’ve never met a scientist with an opinion who didn’t firmly believe they were right and everyone else was wrong,” she agrees, laughing again.

“It’s unheard of,” he says with mirth, grin widening. And then he shakes his head. “No, I simply discussed the hard facts of the matter – mostly that the amount of radiation it receives from it’s red dwarf would completely obliterate most kinds of life. Finding sentient, intelligent beings is, therefore, not likely.”

“So you wrote your dissertation on aliens,” she smirks.

“Essentially. My younger brother is in love with the idea. He was so disappointed after all my research, but he would be very excited to meet you, Doctor Altea.”

“Allura, _please_ ,” she insists. “And I would love to meet him, especially since Altea does not receive copious amounts of radiation and therefore probably does have intelligent life.”

“Right, no bias,” Shiro grins.

“None at all.”

Coran has been unusually silent through all of this, she thinks, but when she looks towards where he was sitting, she finds that he’s no longer there. Perhaps he went into the back room to sleep more without disturbing their new associate. There’s no telling how late he was up last night.

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Shiro,” she says then with a nod. She rifles through some papers on her desk and finds the stack she needs, then hands it to him. “These are the print-outs for Juno’s telemetry data. As I’m sure you’ve found out from our dean, we’re in an Academic space race with NASA currently, so we need all hands on deck.” She doesn’t mention that she’s really only focused on Juno at about seventy-percent capacity – the other thirty percent goes back into Altea. The dean would kill her.

“Of course. I’ll look over all of this and get to work as soon as possible.”

“Great,” she smiles. “Well, I’m going to go fetch breakfast. I’ll see you later, Shiro.”

He smiles as well, and she tries not to swoon too terribly. “Yes. See you soon, Allura.”

She hopes he can’t see her blush.

* * *

 

It wasn’t just a fluke, it seems. Shiro really is just _that_ nice. After she gives him a key to the observatory he starts showing up early, and by the time she gets there he already has a pot of coffee on. Every morning. And he’s never short with her, ever. He complains about his classes sometimes, but everyone does that, and he still somehow manages to do it in a polite way. Over time, she warms up to him a little more, starts to become a little less star struck and sees him as a person.

Just in the first week she learns that:

  1. He has an eighteen year old brother, named Keith, who just started at the university, majoring in Physics and minoring in Astronomy, so she’ll eventually have him in her class.
  2. When he first went to college he thought he wanted to go into Kinesiology and be a physical therapist. He changed his mind after his first physics course, which he took as an elective mostly on a dare.
  3. He’s apparently very brave because it’s unheard of for someone to take a physics course as an elective.
  4. He drinks his coffee black. Somehow.
  5. He’s very utilitarian, which means there is a stark difference from each side of the room.
  6. He loves strawberries, which isn’t odd so much as rather random. But he brings strawberries in his lunch every day, and if he doesn’t bring his lunch, he’ll sometimes get a fruit salad from the union.



So Shiro is very interesting, and a good man. He raves about his brother, listens intently when she talks, even brings her lunch sometimes.

She does her best not to let it get to her too much. He’s a colleague. Just a colleague.

* * *

The coffee shop is quaint, calming, and looks like a place she may have frequented in undergrad. Cream-colored wallpaper lines the walls, and small circular tables are scattered around the storefront; it’s warm and cozy, too, and she takes her coat off the moment the door closes behind them and folds it over her arm. “What would you like?” He asks, looking over at her.

She raises an eyebrow. “I’m perfectly capable of getting my own coffee.”

He doesn’t look too deterred. “I wasn’t implying otherwise. I’d just like to treat you this once, since you’ve been so hospitable.”

She blinks at him for a moment, and then allows a smile. “Alright, I suppose. Just this once.” The idea that women have to be paid for is antiquated and beyond idiotic. She’s glad he doesn’t see it that way; she also does appreciate that he’s doing this for her. She’s not ungrateful by any means. “I’ll take a cappuccino. With whip.”

“Sure,” he smiles. “Pick a seat for us.”

It’s not too busy since it’s the middle of the day and a little ways from campus, so she finds a table fairly quickly, laying her jacket over the back of her chair and sitting down. They’re next to a window, and she spends her time watching the people walk by outside, her cheek rested on her palm and eyes trained outside. She doesn’t look away until Shiro sets her mug in front of her and sits in the other chair.

“Good choice,” he tells her, blowing lightly at his coffee, whatever it is. It’s in a mug just like hers, but without the frills. She just can’t understand why he likes his coffee so…coffee-like, she supposes. Most people don’t actually even like the taste of it, which is why they add creamer or sugar or whatever the need to add. She’s never met someone who seems to enjoy coffee in its pretty much natural state.

“I like sitting by the window,” she returns, gesturing next to her. “I like to people-watch.”

“Mmm,” he agrees, nodding and setting his mug down on the table. “Not the loner scientist type, then?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all, although I do sometimes seem to accidentally isolate myself. Coran always stays nearby, though.”

“How long have you two known each other? You seem close.”

“Oh, a long time,” she tells him. “As long as I can remember. He was friends with my father.”

“I see,” Shiro nods, then pauses. “So, how would you feel about meeting my brother, maybe? Ever since he found I was working with you it’s all he can talk about. He’s a little…invested in your work,” Shiro chuckles softly, looking into his coffee.

“I’d love to,” she smiles. “Why don’t you bring him by the office tomorrow, if you have time?”

It’s a Friday, so there are no classes. Unless Keith has work or something, Allura thinks it should be as good a time as any. “That’d be great,” he nods. “Thanks.”

“No, of course,” she says, shaking her head a little. “I always adore meeting kids who are interested in what I do.”

“Don’t call him a kid to his face,” Shiro says wryly, smiling. “He’ll get so offended.”

She laughs, hiding her grin behind her hand. “Eighteen is a kid to me. I can barely remember what that was like, now.”

“Oh come on,” he says, eyes kind. “It couldn’t have been that long ago.”

“A google search will tell you otherwise,” she jokes, sipping at her cappuccino.

For a while they just talk – not really about anything in particular, just everything. They learn more about each other, and then Shiro checks his watch and announces that he’s got a class in forty minutes. They bring their mugs back to the counter and then slide on their coats and go back to the office. Allura tries to squash the desire to hold his hand.

* * *

 She opens the door to find Shiro and two boys, both probably in their late teens. One of them she assumes is Keith, with his dark hair and violet eyes, but she has no clue who the other is. He’s tall, with brown skin and blue eyes, and very relaxed, leaned back on his heels with his hands in the pockets of his green jacket. She steps aside to let the three of them in, and the mystery kid practically saunters, full of the misplaced confidence of boyhood. She almost wants to giggle, but she doesn’t.

“Allura,” Shiro smiles, and, like usual, her heart skips a beat or two. “This is Keith,” he gestures to the dark haired boy beside him. “And this is his boyfriend, Lance.”

“Hello,” she greets, holding out a hand to him.

He appraises her, and then grins. “Yo,” he nods, and takes her hand. He has a relatively firm grip. He pauses. “Hey, Keith,” Lance says, gesturing towards her with his head. “This is the chick you’re obsessed with, right? She’s hotter than I thought she would be. I don’t have to be jealous, do I?”

“I’m not obsessed with her!” Keith insists, blushing. It’s stark against his pale skin. “I’m sorry,” he says to her, then. “That’s just…Lance. Ignore him. It’s nice to meet you, Doctor Altea.”

“Just Allura, please,” she nods, and they shake hands. She can tell that he is a little star struck, maybe, but he reigns it in well, especially considering how Shiro told her that he really is quite invested in her work. But mostly it’s flattering, especially since he knows how to control himself. “You’re interested in Altea then?”

“Yes,” he nods, fervent. “I’ve been following your research since you first published it.”

In scientific terms, she published it relatively recently, just last year. “I’m honored,” she smiles. “Would you like to come up and see it?”

He perks up immediately, eyes bright. “I would.”

She glances over at Shiro, who’s trying to hide a smirk, and Lance, who isn’t trying to hide it. “Alright, then,” she nods. “Follow me.” She leads the three of them up the stairs and into her office. “Forgive the clutter,” she says, stepping around a stack of textbooks. Keith makes a noncommittal noise, but is mostly looking around the room, probably taking in the things posted on the walls and whatnot. She sits in her chair and spins around to face her computer, turning on the monitor and securely logging in. She gets on the intranet for Altean research, logs into there as well, and then gestures for Keith to sit in Shiro’s chair and angles the monitor towards him.

Kepler data is on the screen, showing a multitude of the solar systems it’s found, and she smiles at him. “Do you see it?” There’s probably about twenty-five systems on the screen, but she wants to see how much he knows before getting any deeper.

He looks at the screen for no longer than thirty seconds and then points at a system in the top right corner. “There. A-67.”

“Yes,” she nods, happy. She types into the command prompt and tells the net to run the program for the A-67 system.

“Have you given the sun an informal name yet? I haven’t seen anything about it.”

She shakes her head. “It’s just the Kepler title so far. Why, do you have a suggestion?”

He looks at her with wide eyes, then flicks them back to the screen. “Uh, no, not really.”

“Well, think about it, then,” she tells him, patting his hand and then pointing to the render of the system. “There’s Altea.”

“The first planet that could potentially sustain life.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “In fact, it probably does. Its average temperature is probably a little higher than Earth’s, about thirty degrees Fahrenheit or so, but the life could definitely have adapted to that. It’s practically identical.”

“It’s amazing to think about,” Keith puts in. “The fact that there could be life that evolved the same way ours did.”

“Oh, absolutely. It keeps me awake at night, sometimes. But then I remember that this is only one planet of trillions just like it, planets that could have sentient life as well. The implications of it are simply astounding. It’s hard to wrap your mind around.”

He nods, leaning closer to the monitor. “I haven’t seen much about the other planets in the system.”

“People tend to focus on Altea, yes. We can’t see if there’s anything smaller in the system, Altea was hard enough, but there is a rocky planet about twice the size of Earth in closer orbit, and then what looks like two or three gas giants further out. It’s fascinating. Generally we think of Sol as a strange system, because it’s so different from the others we’ve seen, but A-67 is so similar to us, with the exception of a few things. Orbital periods and patterns are a little different, and there’s no asteroid belt separating terrestrial planets from Jovian-like planets, but for the most part it’s nearly identical.”

“Statistically that’s bound to happen, though,” Keith says, still looking at the screen, eyes tracking the sped-up orbital movements of the system.

“You’re right,” she concedes. “It just seems so amazing to me, that we’ve found a system like this in our lifetimes.”

“Do the other planets have informal names?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “Just Altea. They’ll probably get names as more about the system is revealed.”

He blinks, then leans back in his chair and smiles at her. “It’s amazing. Any talk of a probe?”

“It would take far too long,” she laughs, waving him off. “About a million years, at least. We need technology to advance much further before we can think about that.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Makes sense.”

“Well,” Shiro puts in, then. “Let’s let Allura get back to work. We have lunch plans, remember?”

Lance leans forward, into her line of sight, and lays across Keith’s lap. “Why don’t you invite her?” He stage whispers to Shiro. Keith tries, unsuccessfully, to push his boyfriend out of his lap.

Shiro looks a little flustered for a half a moment, which is curious, and then turns to her. “Would you like to join us? We’re going to get Thai food.”

“I love Thai,” she smiles. “Just let me pick up my stuff and get my coat. I’ll meet you three down.”

“Sure,” he nods, smiling sheepishly, and Keith finally manages to toss Lance to the floor. The resounding crash and yelp is loud, but she just bites her bottom lip to keep from laughing and turns to her computer, logging out of everything, double-checking that it actually logged her out correctly, and then turning off the monitor. Afterward she bends down to the tower to turn off the power to it as well and stands. By now, the others have cleared out, and she lets the smile return to her face. It’s nice to see kids interested in her research, yes, but the fact that it’s Shiro’s younger brother makes her unbelievably happy for some reason. She doesn’t think on it too hard, just goes into the attached bathroom to check her appearance and then grabs her coat off of the hanger in her office and folds it over her arm. She steps out, not watching in front of her, and bumps right into Shiro’s chest.

He’s broad, not that she didn’t already know this, and smells…so good. She has never wanted to be wrapped up in him more, but like usual she doesn’t allow herself to consider it too much. His arms go up to her shoulders to steady her, and then she steps back. “I’m sorry,” she says, face warm.

He blinks down at her, a little embarrassed. “No, I shouldn’t have been standing right outside the door. I just wanted to thank you. Keith has been really stressed lately, with midterms coming up and everything, so it’s good to see him happy and excited again. I’m sure it was nice for Lance, too – he worries about my brother nearly as much as I do.” He laughs. “Though I’m sure he’d never admit it.”

She smiles wryly. “I’m sure,” she agrees, and then shuts the door to the office and locks it. “And it’s no problem. He’s your brother, so he’s…” she doesn’t know how to finish that, and it shows. “He gets special treatment,” she jokes, covering it up.

Shiro just smiles. “He deserves it.”

She nods and steps past him, towards the stairs, and then starts down them. She can hear Lance and Keith bickering softly at the bottom of them, and tries not to laugh when she sees that they’re basically arguing in a very intimate position, with Keith’s arms around Lance’s neck and Lance’s nose buried in Keith’s hair. When they notice they’ve been joined, they move apart and Lance bounds out of the front door. Keith shakes his head and follows him, and Allura goes to slide on her coat, but Shiro takes it from her and helps her get into it. “What a gentleman,” she says, laughing slightly to hide the bubble in her chest. He’s such a good person.

“I try,” he returns, and walks out the door. She watches him go for a moment before following him out.

* * *

 She notices some sort of shift after this, which seems a little odd to her. It’s a positive shift, she thinks, although it’s probably not for the best. They just…touch a lot more. Shiro will get too near trying to get past her to get somewhere, or their fingers will touch while they walk a little too close, or if he has to lean forward to grab something on her desk their arms will brush. It’s little, silly things that she notices. And he looks at her a lot.

A lot.

Normally she wouldn’t like the attention – she’s been stared at a lot in her life, and it usually makes her uncomfortable, but when Shiro does it she just gets a little nervous and embarrassed. She _wants_ him to watch her. She wants him to want her, and it is starting to seem like he really might. And even though sometimes she feels like she’d do anything for his attention, his touch, his love, she knows that romance in their situation could lead to something bad.

So times goes on with them dancing around each other, getting coffee, having lunch, working late into the night until they both fall asleep right up against each other. It feels a little too much like dating, but she can’t bear to put distance between them. She just can’t let it go farther.

Somehow she knows it will, eventually. It seems unescapable, a promise, like the way two binary stars circle around each other in perfect unison until the inevitable collision. She’s not a teenager anymore, in her late twenties, and she’s been through things like this before. It’s never felt so…certain, before, however. So right. She’s never believed in fate, or destiny, and she still doesn’t, but their meeting doesn’t seem arbitrary. If there is some supreme being, they wanted the two of them to meet. They wanted Allura to be totally and irrevocably enamored and infatuated with her coworker.

She guesses if there was ever anything to make her believe in a god, it would be Shiro.

* * *

 This late at night, there’s no one else here. The entire observatory is totally cleaned out, and she has it all to herself. She could go home as well, she supposes, but she’d much rather take the opportunity to take a look through the telescope.

She’s only there for about five minutes before she feels a hand on the small of her back and she jolts up, startled.

“Sorry!” Shiro apologizes. “You seemed invested in what you were doing so I tried to be gentle.”

“Ah, yes,” she says, smiling slightly. His eyes seem prettier than usual tonight, in the soft glow of candlelight. When she’s using the telescope she generally doesn’t like to use the florescent lights of the room. She likes it to be as dark as possible, and as natural as possible. It’s close to midnight, now, so the only light comes from the moon and the several candles she has burning around the room. It smells pleasantly of cinnamon. “I apologize. It was such a nice night. I wanted to take a look.”

He glances at where the telescope is pointed. “Venus?”

“It was visible with the naked eye, so I wanted to see how it looked with the telescope.”

“How is it?”

“Cloudy,” she jokes. It’s really impossible to see much of Venus because of the severe atmosphere.

He laughs, shaking his head, and leans around her, arms going on either side of her waist, to turn the wheel and direction of the focal point. “There, right? In the constellation of Cygnus?”

She smiles, enjoying his warmth. It’s rather cold in the room with the top of the observatory open, even with her jacket on. Almost instinctively, she leans a little closer to him. “Yes,” she nods, closing her eyes for just a moment before parting from him. “Just three hundred and eighty light years away.”  

“Close. We should vacation there.”

She laughs, cheerily. “Perhaps. Keith seems to think so.”

“He gets overly excited and doesn’t think things through sometimes,” Shiro explains, smiling. “A very rash kid.”

She leans back down to take a look at the constellation. A-67 is there, amongst the smattering of other stars. She remembers the first time she saw it with the telescope, thinking that it was amazing that something so far could seem so close. Like she could touch it. “I hope that one day humanity is able to find some way to see it closer. Even if I never get to see it, I would like someone to know what the planet really looks like. We can only guess.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” he tells her, and she leans away. He looks into the telescope too, and she bites her lip and looks away. This feels like a very dangerous situation.

She kind of likes it.

He moves the telescope around for a bit, looking at different constellations, and groans when he finally bends back up. She understands that can be a little tough on your back – you kind of have to be in a weird angle for it.

When he’s righted himself, he looks at her. For a long, long moment, he just watches. It’s hard to read the emotion on his face, but it looks soft, she thinks, and all she wants is to feel him against her. Holding her. She feels a little like a kid again, but something about this feeling is so mature, so far from juvenile. It’s a weird mix, a cocktail of adult desire and childish infatuation.

Then they’re close, and she doesn’t know who walked forward, maybe both of them, but everything feels like it’s moving quickly, too fast for her to process, and then they’re kissing, his mouth warm and heavy against hers. She makes a small noise in the back of her throat and then wraps her arms around his neck; his settle on each side of her waist, rubbing circles into it through her coat, and he tastes like black coffee. She no longer feels the cold temperature, no longer has any sensation at all besides Shiro. Shiro and his big hands, his soft lips, his hot breath. They kiss for what feels like hours, and when they part she doesn’t even give herself the option of fear. She just sinks into his embrace, pressed against his chest, and they breathe. Neither of them say a word. They don’t need to. She’s sure that Shiro realizes this isn’t the smartest idea, but it doesn’t seem as if he cares very much.

They just hold each other for the longest time, and then they part, her hand sliding down his arm to intertwine their fingers, and she leads him back to their office, where they kiss again and fall asleep without another sound.

* * *

They don’t start dating after this, not really. She’s found that in the adult world it’s not always a boyfriend-girlfriend situation, and it’s not for them. They’re together, in a way, and people know this, but they don’t introduce each other as anything but colleagues. It’s a little weird, but she likes it better this way. If it’s not acknowledged, then there doesn’t have to be anything wrong with it. They can still spend long nights together, at each other’s houses instead of the observatory, up late not because of work but because of each other. And then Shiro can wake her up in the morning and she doesn’t have to be late. They tend to be anyway, though, because they always seem to stop for breakfast and start talking, losing track of time. They never run out of things to say, although sometimes they feel like they don’t need to say anything at all. They have an understanding that Allura has never felt.

She sees more of Keith and Lance, which is fun. They’re always making some kind of spectacle, courtesy of Lance usually, and it’s never boring. She meets their friends, too – Hunk, who’s an engineering student, and Pidge, Sam Holt’s child, who’s a computer science major. One time Hunk brings them all out in his truck to a field for a meteor shower and Lance and Keith take turns bickering about how many they see. Lance says he counts upwards of one hundred, which Keith says is pretty impossible considering their location. Lance vehemently disagrees.

She sides with Keith, but doesn’t say so out loud, and makes wishes in her mind for every meteor she sees, head pillowed on Shiro’s chest and a warm blanket over them.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is @ alteanengines


End file.
